” As the federal government was wrapping up its antitrust investigation of Google Inc., company executives had a flurry of meetings with top officials at the White House and Federal Trade Commission, the agency running the probe.

The documents don’t show exactly what was discussed in late 2012. Soon afterward, the FTC closed its investigation after Google agreed to make voluntary changes to its business practices. (See the FTC document on Google).

Google’s access to high-ranking Obama administration officials during a critical phase of the antitrust probe is one sign of the Internet giant’s reach in Washington. Since Mr. Obama took office, employees of the Mountain View, Calif., company have visited the White House for meetings with senior officials about 230 times, or an average of roughly once a week, according to the visitor logs reviewed by the Journal.”

” A previously undisclosed report by staffers at the Federal Trade Commission reveals new details about how Google Inc. manipulated search results to favor its own services over rivals’, even when they weren’t most relevant for users.

In a lengthy investigation, staffers in the FTC’s bureau of competition found evidence that Google boosted its own services for shopping, travel and local businesses by altering its ranking criteria and “scraping” content from other sites. It also deliberately demoted rivals.

The report’s insight into Google’s business practices is still relevant as Google expands its own offerings. Just this month, it launched a search tool for car-insurance quotes, which competes with similar tools offered by Allstate Corp.’s Esurance, among others. It has beefed up hotel listings that compete with TripAdvisor Inc. and ExpediaInc.”

Gee , is anyone really surprised that Google manipulates the search results of it’s users ? If ever there was a monopoly that could use a little trust-busting … and remember , this is coming from the corporation that wants to rank it’s search results by “truthiness” … Continue reading

Richard Salgado, Google’s director for law enforcement and information security, wrote Tuesday that the Justice Department’s plans for remotely accessing computer files “raises a number of monumental and highly complex constitutional, legal, and geopolitical concerns that should be left to Congress to decide.”

National Journal reported Wednesday that the federal government wants to make changes to a criminal procedure provision known as Rule 41, which would allow judges to approve warrants outside their jurisdictions.

“ The serious and complex constitutional concerns implicated by the proposed amendment are numerous and, because of the nature of Fourth Amendment case law development, are unlikely to be addressed by courts in a timely fashion,” Mr. Salgado wrote.

Google fears the federal government is using vague language that would permit it to spy on millions of Americans simultaneously.”

” Google handed over confidential data of WikiLeaks’ staff to the U.S. government, prompting the whistleblower organization to send a letter to both the search engine giant and the U.S. Department of Justice seeking an explanation.

WikiLeaks announced on its website on Monday that its investigations editor Sarah Harrison, section editor Joseph Farrell, and senior journalist and spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson have received a notice that Google had handed over all their emails and metadata to the U.S. government, which has issued warrants alleging “conspiracy” and “espionage” against the journalists. The charges carry a prison sentence of up to 45 years.

“ The US government is claiming universal jurisdiction to apply the Espionage Act, general Conspiracy statute and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to journalists and publishers – a horrifying precedent for press freedoms around the world,” WikiLeaks said on its website.”

” The Center for American Progress, the preeminent liberal think tank in Washington, is poised to exert outsized influence over the 2016 president race and — should Hillary Clinton win it — the policies and agenda of the 45th President of the United States. CAP founder John Podesta is set to run Clinton’s presidential campaign, and current CAP president Neera Tanden is a longtime Clinton confidante and adviser. CAP recently rolled out a major blueprint for combat wage stagnation and inequality that many view as a template for a Clinton economic agenda, and there are surely more major policy statements to come.

So interest in CAP’s funding sources — and its internal workings in general — is likely to intensify and take on a political cast.

Today, CAP is revealing its major 2014 donors, after taking some criticism for lack of transparency. The organization provided me two lists of its donors, which you can read right here and right here. The first is for the C (3), the nonpartisan think tank arm; the second is for the more political, issue-advocacy-oriented c (4).

Perhaps most notably, given CAP’s advocacy for an economically progressive agenda, is that CAP’s top donors include Walmart and Citigroup, each of which have given between $100,000 and $499,000. Other donors to CAP — a leading advocate of health care reform — include the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents leading biotech and bio-pharma firms, and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, both of which have given up to $49,000.”

” After already receiving a controversial $1.6 billion construction loan from U.S. taxpayers, the wealthy investors of a California solar power plant now want a $539 million federal grant to pay off their federal loan.

” This is an attempt by very large cash generating companies that have billions on their balance sheet to get a federal bailout, i.e. a bailout from us – the taxpayer for their pet project,” said Reason Foundation VP of Research Julian Morris. “It’s actually rather obscene.” “

” The Ivanpah solar electric generating plant is owned by Google and renewable energy giant NRG, which are responsible for paying off their federal loan. If approved by the U.S. Treasury, the two corporations will not use their own money, but taxpayer cash to pay off 30 percent of the cost of their plant, but taxpayers will receive none of the millions in revenues the plant will generate over the next 30 years.

” They’re already paying less than the market rate,” said Morris, author of a lengthy report detailing alleged cronyism and corruption in the Obama administration’s green energy programs. “Now demanding or asking for a subsidy in the form of a grant directly paying off the loan is an egregious abuse.” “

Cronyism at its worst . If anyone can afford to pay the taxpayers back for their forced largesse it is certainly Google .

” Users might have praised the technology companies for efforts to encrypt their latest devices that would prevent law enforcement agencies’ hands on users’ private data, but the FBI is not at all happy with Apple and Google right now.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation director, James Comey, said Thursday he was “very concerned” over Apple and Google using stronger or full encryption in their Smartphones and Tablets that makes it impossible for law enforcement to collar criminals.

According to Comey, the Silicon Valley tech giants are “marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves above the law.”

“There will come a day – well it comes every day in this business – when it will matter a great, great deal to the lives of people of all kinds that we be able to with judicial authorization gain access to a kidnapper’s or a terrorist or a criminal’s device,” Comey told reporters.

“I just want to make sure we have a good conversation in this country before that day comes. I’d hate to have people look at me and say, ‘Well how come you can’t save this kid,’ ‘How come you can’t do this thing.’” “

” The US tech industry has failed to appreciate the mounting global concern over its record on online privacy and security and must act fast to prevent deeper damage to its image, Silicon Valley’s top executives and investors have conceded.

The self-criticism, much of it aimed at consumer internet companies such as Google and Facebook, comes as some of the tech sector’s best-known names have been battered by a backlash over revelations of widespread US internet surveillance and concerns about their growing business and cultural dominance.

Peter Thiel, a prominent start-up investor and Facebook director, said: “Silicon Valley is quite oblivious to the degree to which this crescendo of concern is building up in Europe. It’s an extremely important thing and Silicon Valley is underestimating it badly.

Jim Breyer, an early investor and former board member of Facebook, said: “The US government and [tech] companies will have to step up significantly if they want to regain the world’s trust.”

” Before companies like Microsoft and Apple release new software, the code is reviewed and tested to ensure it works as planned and to find any bugs.

Hackers and cybercrooks do the same. The last thing you want if you’re a cyberthug is for your banking Trojan to crash a victim’s system and be exposed. More importantly, you don’t want your victim’s antivirus engine to detect the malicious tool.

So how do you maintain your stealth? You submit your code to Google’s VirusTotal site and let it do the testing for you.

It’s long been suspected that hackers and nation-state spies are using Google’s antivirus site to test their tools before unleashing them on victims. Now Brandon Dixon, an independent security researcher, has caught them in the act, tracking several high-profile hacking groups—including, surprisingly, two well-known nation-state teams—as they used VirusTotal to hone their code and develop their tradecraft. “

” Technology giant Google has developed state of the art software which proactively scours hundreds of millions of email accounts for images of child abuse.

The breakthrough means paedophiles around the world will no longer be able to store and send vile images via email without the risk of their crimes becoming known to the authorities.

Details of the software emerged after a 41-year-old convicted sex offender was arrested in Texas for possession of child abuse images.

Police in the United States revealed that Google’s sophisticated search system had identified suspect material in an email sent by a man in Houston.

Child protection experts were automatically tipped off and were then able to alert the police, who swooped after requesting the user’s personal information from Google.”

Certainly we have no desire to facilitate the proliferation of child porn , but this news report provides yet another vivid illustration of Google’s lack of respect for basic privacy rights . Anyone that uses Gmail is crazy . How long will it be before the State “persuades” the tech giant to employ software that detects the “malcontents” and “subversives” amongst us ?

” The emojis are a part of the Unicode 7.0 software update from Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

Not many photos have been released of the new icons, but they’ll be added to the Emojipedia “as soon as they are available.”

Some of the new emojis are computer-themed, such as floppy disks, printers, and keyboards. We’ll also be able to go to war with our friends via text, as Emoji is releasing military airplanes, boats, and rockets.”

” Now new evidenced has surfaced that might just be the nail in the coffin for the Obama administration.

According to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, an explosive new email reveals that the White House was contacting YouTube owner Google to try and come up with a false narrative for the events that were in progress in Benghazi.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said on Thursday that the Obama White House was contacting YouTube owner Google during the Benghazi terrorist attacks, working on the false narrative even before Americans were out of harm’s way and before the intelligence community examined available evidence.

The still classified Obama State Department email, according to Issa, shows that the Obama White House rushed to settle on the false narrative of the anti-Islamic YouTube video instigating the attacks, which was completely at odds with the conclusions reached by reports from the ground.

“ The e-mail shows the White House had hurried to settle on a false narrative — one at odds with the conclusions reached by those on the ground — before Americans were even out of harm’s way or the intelligence community had made an impartial examination of available evidence,” Issa said.

Issa has called for the Obama White House to declassify the email.

According to Issa, one of the items noted in the email stated, “White House is reaching out to U-Tube [sic] to advise ramifications of the posting of the Pastor Jon video.”

Issa scolded current Secretary of State, Democrat John Kerry, for just now turning over a classified version of the email, some 20 months after the attack, while calling on the regime to release a unclassified copy.

” It’s been less than 48 hours since Google launched its online tool that allows people in the European Union to request to be “forgotten” from search results, and the company has already received 12,000 requests, according to a new report.

The requests are in response to a European Court of Justice ruling earlier this month that found EU citizens have a “right to be forgotten” online and that Google must remove links to search results that can damage a person’s reputation.

Reutersreports the company received 12,000 requests in the first 24 hours the form was online, with requests at times coming in as fast as 20 per minute.”

” This summer, Facebook will present a paper at a computer vision conference revealing how it has created a tool almost as accurate as the human brain when it comes to saying whether two photographs show the same person – regardless of changes in lighting and camera angles. A human being will get the answer correct 97.53% of the time; Facebook’s new technology scores an impressive 97.25%. “We closely approach human performance,” says Yaniv Taigman, a member of its AI team.

Since the ability to recognise faces has long been a benchmark for artificial intelligence, developments such as Facebook’s “DeepFace” technology (yes, that’s what it called it) raise big questions about the power of today’s facial recognition tools and what these mean for the future.

Facebook is not the only tech company interested in facial recognition. A patent published by Apple in March shows how the Cupertino company has investigated the possibility of using facial recognition as a security measure for unlocking its devices – identifying yourself to your iPhone could one day be as easy as snapping a quick selfie.

Google has also invested heavily in the field. Much of Google’s interest in facial recognition revolves around the possibilities offered by image search, with the search leviathan hoping to find more intelligent ways to sort through the billions of photos that exist online. Since Google, like Facebook wants to understand its users, it makes perfect sense that the idea of piecing together your life history through public images would be of interest, although users who uploaded images without realising they could be mined in this manner might be less impressed when they end up with social media profiles they never asked for.

Google’s deepest dive into facial recognition is its Google Glass headsets. Thanks to the camera built into each device, the headsets would seem to be tailormade for recognising the people around you. That’s exactly what third-party developers thought as well, since almost as soon as the technology was announced, apps such as NameTag began springing up. NameTag’s idea was simple: that whenever you start a new conversation with a stranger, your Google Glass headset takes a photo of them and then uses this to check the person’s online profile. Whether they share your interest in Werner Herzog films, or happen to be a convicted sex offender, nothing will escape your gaze. “With NameTag, your photo shares you,” the app’s site reads. “Don’t be a stranger.” “

More at The Guardian . Read the whole thing and be afraid , very afraid .

” We’ve asked the companies in our Who Has Your Back Program what they are doing to bolster encryption in light of the NSA’s unlawful surveillance of your communications. We’re pleased to see that fourfivesix seven companies—Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Sonic.net,SpiderOak, and Twitter—are implementing five out of five of our best practices for encryption. See the infographic.

By adopting these practices, described below, these service providers have taken a critical step towards protecting their users from warrantless seizure of their information off of fiber-optic cables. By enabling encryption across their networks, service providers can make backdoor surveillance more challenging, requiring the government to go to courts and use legal process. While Lavabit’s travails have shown how difficult that can be for service providers, at least there was the opportunity to fight back in court.

While not every company in our survey has implemented every recommendation, each step taken helps, and we appreciate those who have worked to strengthen their security. We hope that every online service provider adopts these best practices and continues to work to protect their networks and their users.”

” Selfie, landscape or portrait, we tend to take a lot of photos — and some places are more conducive to snapping pics than others.

Google released a heat map that highlights the Earth’s most photographed locales. Data included in Sightsmap comes from geolocated images uploaded by individual users to the Google Maps Panoramio service, which associates images with locations in Google Maps and Google Earth. You can even begin planning a trip with the map by selecting a starting point and destination, which brings up estimated travel time and links to travel sites.”

” Google is about to make it a whole lot easier for strangers to send you an email. Likewise, you will soon be able to send an email to someone, even if you don’t have their address.

It’s a new Gmail feature that will let you type anyone’s name into the “To” field (when you compose your email) and then you can send them an email. However, it will also mean you could get many received from others. The emails, thankfully, should not land in your Gmail inbox, but in a newly set up “social” tab, you may have noticed was introduced as an addition to your Gmail a few months back.

The service is expected to go live within the next week and it has been confirmed — and this is the important bit — that by default, anyone on its social network will be able to send messages to your Gmail inbox.”

” Reports came out yesterday in the UK covering Google’s newest release of their “Transparency Report.” Turkey has been known for it’s total lack of press freedom, and now reports show the U.S. is approaching the same leagues as Turkey.

The report was presented on the blog of Susan Infantino, the Legal Director of Google. She and her legal team launched the annual Transparency Report three years ago, in hopes it would “shine light on the scale and scope of government requests for censorship and data around the globe.”

From January to June 2013, the search giant received 3,846 government requests to remove content from its search services, which represents a 68% increase over the second half of 2012.”

After we published the post, several people contacted us to say that the feature had actually been removed in Android 4.4.2, which was released earlier this week. Today, we installed that update to our test device, and can confirm that the App Ops privacy feature that we were excited about yesterday is in fact now gone.

When asked for comment, Google told us that the feature had only ever been released by accident — that it was experimental, and that it could break some of the apps policed by it. We are suspicious of this explanation, and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the feature rather than improving it.”

” Glassdoor, a Sausalito, Calif.-based job-listing website, has announced its annual list of the “Best Places to Work 2014,” in which Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), one of the world’s most valuable companies, slid more than two dozen places to be ranked 35, based on reviews from the company’s employees.

While Bain & Company once again took the number one spot on the overall list, Twitter made it to the top of the technology companies’ rankings. Apple, which secured the tenth spot on Glassdoor’s list in 2012, garnering a rating of 3.9 out of 5, fell to number 35 in a list of 50 U.S. companies, despite dropping only 0.1 points (3.8 out of 5) on a five-point rating scale.”

” Today, there are full-page advertisements running in the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Roll Call, and The Hill. They all have the same message: big tech companies are calling on Congress to rein in the mass surveillance. You can read the full message on the newly-launched Reform Government Surveillance site.

This is a victory for users—with the companies taking a giant step forward in supporting their customers’ rights. The five basic principles they announced today include:

Limiting Governments’ Authority to Collect Users’ Information

Oversight and Accountability

Transparency About Government Demands

Respecting the Free Flow of Information

Avoiding Conflicts Among Governments

While these are all valuable, the first one particularly heartened us: “Governments should limit surveillance to specific, known users for lawful purposes, and should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications.” With these principles, the companies are joining digital citizens worldwide in demanding a stop to the unrestrained, mass surveillance of our digital lives.”

It’s about time . Don’t forget that these companies were very quick to roll over and give the government everything that it demanded as far as access to our personal data and while we commend them for their newfound love of privacy one can only wonder if this letter would have ever come about without the revelations from Edward Snowden being made public . For now color us cautiously optimistic regarding these corporations recently acquired respect for the fourth amendment .

It is also worth noting that there are no cell phone carriers/providers among the companies clamoring for renewed privacy laws and therein lies a major drawback to the entire effort to re-establish our right to protection from illegal search and seizure .

” But notably absent from the coalition are telecom companies, like Verizon and AT&T. These companies have long been considered the weak link when it comes to government access request. AT&T just announced that it would not respond to shareholder requests to be transparent about its relationship with the NSA.”

” Earlier today, Motorola launched the followup to its slow-selling Moto X: a cheaper sibling, the Moto G. Almost three months after launch of the Moto X, Motorola hopes to reach the untapped lower and midrange markets where its first Google-powered handset couldn’t reach.

Although this is officially the “cheap” version of the Moto X, the Moto G isn’t a device to be taken lightly. The smartphone comes stock with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with Motorola promising an Android 4.4 upgrade by January. The smartphone also has a 1.2GHz quad-core CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB or 16GB of internal storage. There’s a 5-MP camera with a 1.3-MP front-facing camera, which is a noticeable dip from the Moto X but still capable of good picture quality. During the launch event, Motorola said the device will give “all-day battery life,” but didn’t get into specifics. The G is rumored to have a 1950-mAh battery. “

It’s about time someone released a good , relatively inexpensive , no-strings attached smartphone . Does anyone believe that these $800 iPhones and Galaxy’s are really worth that kind of expenditure ? The smartphone market is one area of the tech industry where we have yet to enjoy the continually declining costs inherent in the mass circulation of goods that has governed the electronics market . It’s about time . Let’s hope that the phone is a good one and that it’s presence on the market drives the competitors to reduce their price tags as well .

” We, at Niantic Labs at Google, are really excited to let you know that our biggest milestone since the introduction of Ingress is just around the corner: On December 14, 2013, when our worldwide 9-week, 39-city global player event called Operation #13MAGNUS concludes, Ingress will exit Beta. So today, we have several important announcements to share:

First off, we are dropping the invitation code requirement so that we can welcome all Android players into our Beta. We look forward to welcoming new Agents into the global Ingress community. Beginning now, you can join the worldwide action by downloading Ingress on Google Play at http://goo.gl/KIshWr

Niantic Labs would also like to thank Agents around the world who have supported us during the beta, so today we are also announcing a special one-time badge: The Founder Medal . All Agents that reach Level 5 by December 14, 2013 will qualify for a special achievement for their early support of the Ingress experience.

Additionally, we are excited to announce The Ingress Elite Vchallenge. From Monday, November 4 through the culmination of Operation #13MAGNUS on Saturday, December 14, all Ingress Agents will be eligible to participate in this challenge to identify the five (5) most elite Agents from around the world. Measured by a wide set of Ingress performance stats and a creative social media submission, the winning Ingress Agents will be flown to California for Top Secret Ingress briefings in February 2014 and a special interview with+Susanna Moyer from The Ingress Report at http://www.youtube.com/ingress . Details on the Ingress Elite V challenge can be found at http://goo.gl/Cxfo1b ”

Along with the shift from the Beta experimental stage to the open market Google is offering some additional treats and challenges for those lucky enough to be playing the Beta version of the game during the lead-up to going public . Below is a brief synopsis of what Ingress is all about … for the uninitiated , such as ourselves …

“Ingress is a game of exploration and discovery in the real world, as well as a way to join in with an amazing global community of Ingress Agents,” said +John Hanke , VP in charge of Google’s Niantic Labs. “Our journey over the past year has taken us to live events in more than 80 cities around the world, more than one million downloads of the Ingress app, and more than one million Portals discovered and submitted by Ingress Agents. Two ebooks, a comic book series, and a weekly YouTube show, ‘The Ingress Report’ paint a rich picture of the Ingress world. And Agents have made it their own with more than 2,000 Ingress user communities created on global social networks and countless designs for shirts, badges, jewelry and other objects. More than a dozen Agents have gone so far as to tattoo the Ingress logos on their bodies! A huge thank you to all of the amazing people that have been part of the Ingress journey so far. You have helped make Ingress what it is and have inspired us with so many amazing stories about meeting one another and finding new ways to explore and interact with our world. We can’t wait to see how players continue to make Ingress and the real world a more fun and inspiring place.”

Even after putting together this post we must admit that we are still mostly in the dark as to the whole concept of Ingress , but if nothing else , it is a game that will finally get people’s butts up off the couch and out into the world . We supposed that that is benefit enough for a start .